Week That Was: Cookie Hacking, Phone Unlocking, Year-Enders : All Tech ConsideredIn this week's roundup of top tech conversations and stories: how tech giants are flexing their muscles against government, Twitter's abandoned blocking policy, and how the tech empire is striking back against creeping government surveillance.

U.S. government surveillance reaches too far, say eight major tech companies. The heads of tech giants who traditionally compete with one another — including Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft — published an open letter to President Obama calling for reforms to government surveillance programs. On All Things Considered,Audie Cornish chatted with David Drummond, chief legal officer for Google, who says the "pendulum has swung too far towards secrecy."

We're six months into revelations of National Security Agency spying based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, and this week, more news rolled out. The Washington Post reports that the NSA is secretly using private companies' cookies and location trackers to target people for surveillance and hacking. In noting that private online data tracking is essentially the same as government surveillance, PandoDaily's Nathaniel Mott writes, "The same tools used to personalize ads or provide location-based offers are also apparently allowing these agencies to identify, track, and target specific Internet users."

More than 100,000 people have signed an online petition asking President Obama to support changes to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The 27-year-old law allows seizure of email and other digital communications without a warrant.